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Thursday, May 28, 2015

Hello there and welcome to Thursday Movie Picks a weekly series where you share three movie picks each Thursday. The
rules are simple simple: Each week there is a topic for
you to create a list of three movies. Your picks can either be
favourites/best, worst, hidden gems, or if you're up to it one of
each.For further details visit the
series main page here.

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This week's Thursday Movie Picks
is All in the Family Edition: Mother-Son Relationships (Biologically Related)

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Every last Thursday for the
first nine months of 2015 I'm running the All in the Family Edition and this is the fifth theme for the edition. Here are three of my picks:

Animal Kingdom (2010)
The film follows a criminal family and features the relationships between the family members:
between brothers, uncles and nephews, and mother and sons. Jacki Weaver
plays Janine the matriarch of the family who may seem like just a loving and fussy mother at first, but she has a very strong hold on all her sons. Animal Kingdom has almost a silent but intense air of menace that permeates throughout the film that have you anticipating something bad to happen at every turn. I highly recommend this movie.

Mother (2009)
In Mother, Yoon Do-joon suffers from some unnamed mental/learning disability making him slower than most of his peers. When a girl is murdered, he becomes the prime suspect; it doesn't help that he's too slow to defend himself. Despite Yoon Do-joon being seen as guilty by the police and public, his mother believes he is innocent and will do whatever it takes to prove it; how far will she go to protect her child?

Nowhere Boy (2009)
The movie follows the teen years of John Lennon and features his relationship with his aunt that raised him and his absentee biological mother who comes back into his life after years away. The two women are opposites. One is mature and likes order, The other free-spirited; encouraging Lennon's interest in art and music. Nowhere Boy is kind of the perfect pick today since you'd basically get two mothers here.

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So that's it...my three picks. What three movies made your list today?

If
you are participating be sure to add your blog post to the linky widget
below (Enter your Blog Post URL, your Blog Name and your email {which
will remain hidden}). Please also visit the other participating blogs,
spread the word about this meme, and also link back to my blog on your
own Thursday Movie Picks post :)

Thursday, May 21, 2015

Hello there and welcome to Thursday Movie Picks a weekly series where you share three movie picks each Thursday. The
rules are simple simple: Each week there is a topic for
you to create a list of three movies. Your picks can either be
favourites/best, worst, hidden gems, or if you're up to it one of
each.For further details visit the
series main page here.

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This week's Thursday Movie Picks
is Movies based on a Graphic Novel/Comic (Non-Superhero)

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Since we already had a superhero theme a couple of weeks ago, I think it's perfectly fitting to have that little caveat there excluding superheroes. I don't think it should limit your choices especially since there have been more and more graphic novel adaptations lately.

This week I'm going with favourites; picking the first two was simple enough, the last was somewhat tied with several others but I'm just going to go with it.

Road to Perdition
One of my favourites and it's definitely not a movie that immediately comes to mind when you think of a graphic novel adaptation. If you like noir, I think you'd enjoy this. The movie revolves around complex father-and-son-relationships, loyalty and the search for justice; which is somewhat absurd since they are all immoral characters, something Paul Newman's character is quick to point out. Jude Law also plays a memorable villain here.

V for Vendetta
The Lives of Others was a very popular pick last week; if you like that you may like V for Vendetta. In this one, a futuristic Britain is ruled by a totalitarian government until a man called V starts to cause a little havoc, planting seeds of discontent and igniting a revolution. This is the only one of the three where I've read the graphic novel. The movie did make a couple of changes: the time period is changed and the movie serves more as a commentary on what has occurred as they say, across the pond among others, but one notable difference is probably V himself. In the movie V was more enigmatic and dangerously charming. In the novel, V is so much crazier and scarier.

300
I feel like I've talked about this movie before on this blog, or perhaps mentioned it in comments on another. Not a movie I thought I'd like but I was pretty sold on it once I saw the trailer. So it may not be the most historically accurate, what it is, is entertaining and a visual spectacle.

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So that's it...my three picks. What three movies made your list today?

If
you are participating be sure to add your blog post to the linky widget
below (Enter your Blog Post URL, your Blog Name and your email {which
will remain hidden}). Please also visit the other participating blogs,
spread the word about this meme, and also link back to my blog on your
own Thursday Movie Picks post :)

Thursday, May 14, 2015

Hello there and welcome to Thursday Movie Picks a weekly series where you share three movie picks each Thursday. The
rules are simple simple: Each week there is a topic for
you to create a list of three movies. Your picks can either be
favourites/best, worst, hidden gems, or if you're up to it one of
each.For further details visit the
series main page here.

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This week's Thursday Movie Picks
is Foreign Language Movies - German

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I do a a foreign language theme every few months or so; this is the second foreign language theme since the inception of the series. The first was French movies and there will be two more of such themes this year so look out for that if you like watching non English titles.

I have to admit I haven't watch a lot of German language movies; still, I have caught a few gems.

The Princess and the Warrior (2000)I've picked this movie before (I think it was the Mental Institution theme) but I can't help it because it is a favourite. Written and directed by Tykwer, the movie centers on a nurse at an asylum whose life clashes with a thief when she is hit by a truck.

The Lives of Others (2006)The movie follows an agent of the secret police in East Germany conducting surveillance on a writer and
his loverand he soon becomes absorbed by their lives. It won the Oscar Foreign Language Film award, which definitely got more people to watch it, so I'm pretty sure this is going to be a popular pick this week. I'm still going to pick it because it is really good and if you have somehow missed watching it, you really should get to it.

Barbara (2012)This is another movie set in 1980's East Germany. The movie is about Barbara, a doctor, banished to work in countryside clinic after applying to get an exit visa to join
her boyfriend who lives in the West. Barbara is seen as a potential defector and as such the Stasi are watching her like a hawk and she can't trust any of her new colleagues, who can all be Stasi informants. The movie paints a scary world in a quiet manner; love it.

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So that's it...my three picks. What three movies made your list today?

If
you are participating be sure to add your blog post to the linky widget
below (Enter your Blog Post URL, your Blog Name and your email {which
will remain hidden}). Please also visit the other participating blogs,
spread the word about this meme, and also link back to my blog on your
own Thursday Movie Picks post :)

Thursday, May 7, 2015

Hello there and welcome to Thursday Movie Picks a weekly series where you share three movie picks each Thursday. The
rules are simple simple: Each week there is a topic for
you to create a list of three movies. Your picks can either be
favourites/best, worst, hidden gems, or if you're up to it one of
each.For further details visit the
series main page here.

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This week's Thursday Movie Picks
is Work Place Movies

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Before I start with my picks, here are my own criteria as to what are considered to be work place movies: A majority of the story must take place at the work place (office, store or whatever) and a majority of the interactions and relationships are with colleagues.

The Devil Wears Prada (2006)
Does this movie need any introduction? I'm sure just about everyone has seen this right? You don't even have to care about all the fashion stuff. After all it is just about a young woman trying to find her footing in the working world, starting out in a publication she doesn't quite care for at first and becoming subordinate to one of those demanding scary bosses that constantly gives that look of annoyance and disappointment over everyone supposed incompetence.

Empire Records (1995)
Are there anymore record stores out there or have they all pretty much died out by now? Empire Records takes place mostly over a day at the store as its dedicated employees scramble to try and save the store. I sort of love this movie because of the 90s and the record store nostalgia. I used to think working at a record/video/book store would be fun because you'd be surrounded by other individuals who are interested in the same things, well at least that's what movies and TV tell you right? Wrong; most don't know anything about what they're trying to sell beyond how many copies they have in stock because everyone's just there to get by.

Morning Glory (2010)
I found this to quite a charming drama/comedy. Rachel McAdams plays a young television producer hired to produce a struggling morning show. Morale in her new team is very low due to ratings pressure and her job is made more challenging by hosts that just don't get along putting a dark cloud over the morning show. Don't worry all is well by the end, and it interesting to see all the wrangling done to have that chirpy perky show every morning.

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So that's it...my three picks. What three movies made your list today?

If
you are participating be sure to add your blog post to the linky widget
below (Enter your Blog Post URL, your Blog Name and your email {which
will remain hidden}). Please also visit the other participating blogs,
spread the word about this meme, and also link back to my blog on your
own Thursday Movie Picks post :)